How To: Rust Bluing.

[AFJuvat]

I wanted to rust blue a few parts for a "Franken Rifle" that was left over from the two parts rifles that donated parts to my Arisaka.

While I was at it, I tossed in the "bubba" bolt from my Arisaka. This bolt had the original handle cut off, and a bent, flattened monstrosity welded on. Since the heat treatment is now questionable at best, it is a junked part. But it worked well to try a few different techniques with filing/sanding/and polishing metal before bluing.

Pic 1 - Parts before stripping and cleaning.



Pic 2 - Water, Dawn dish soap and 2 tablespoons of Lemi-Shine in a ultrasonic cleaner will clean/degrease the parts and strip off all of the old bluing.



Pic 3 - After 3 cycles in the ultrasoinic, the parts are stripped. Note that it removed the rust from the bolt handle.



After the parts were stripped, rinsed, and soaked in denatured alcohol to de-water them, I lightly polished the surfaces of the 'good' parts with 0000 steel wool. The bolt got a once over with files and sandpaper to remove/reduce scratches, gouges, hammer marks, etc. I did not try to remove the biggest ones completely, but overall, I was able to clean it up quite a bit.

Pic 4 - Bolt body



Pic 5 - "Bubba" bolt handle, close up.



Continued next post.